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of ^l^erhinar Islonb. 



THE OLD MISSION CHURCH 



OF MACKINAC ISLAND. 



AN HISTORICAL DISCOURSE 



Dbliverbd at the Reopening, - < riP /s ^-« 

July 28th, 1895, 



THE REV. MEADE C. WILLIAMS, D. D. 



Issued by the Board of Trustees. 



1895 

PRESS OF WILTON-SMITH CO. 
DETROIT, MICH. 




OLD MISSION CHURCH, 






^. 



I 90 1'^ 



PREFACE. 

A number of visitors on Mackinac Island for several years past 
have had the project of building a Union Chapel for religious ser- 
vices during the summer seasons. Instead, however, of erecting a 
new one the scheme took the shape last season of purchasing the 
long abandoned "Old Mission Church," standing at the east end of 
the Island, and refitting it for our purpose after its original style. 
This has been done, and on Sunday, the 28th of July, 
1895, the first service was held in the restored Church. 
The Rev. E. D. Morris, D. D., of Lane Theological 
Seminary, Cincinnati, and the Rev. H. F. Colby, D. D., pastor of 
the First Baptist Church of Dayton, Ohio, took part with the 
speaker of the occasion in the services. This discourse aims to tell 
the story of the Old Church and at the same time of the early 
Christian Mission which secured the building and gave it its name. 

I express my acknowledgments to the Rev. E. E. Strong, D. D.. 
of Boston, editorial secretary of the American Board, and to the Rev. 
William Jordan, of Clinton, Massachusetts, a member of its Pru- 
dential Committee, for their pains in securing important data for 
me from the early records of the Board. Also to Mrs. Maria L. 
Chapman, who as a young girl used to attend the services of the 
Church, and was also a pupil of the school; and to Ignace Pelotte, 
whose whole life has been spent on the Island, and who now in 
extreme old age distinctly recalls the time when in the vigor of 
his manhood he bore a part in work pertaining to the building. 

August, 1895. M- C. W, 



The Old Mission Church. 



While this historic building, in which we are assembled, 
is now the Union Chapel of Mackinac Island, I dare say 
that, as heretofore, so in the future, it will continue to be 
known and to be familiarly and tenderly spoken of as "The 
Old Mission Church." In guide books, in photograph col- 
lections, in the vocabulary of the carriage men conducting 
visitors to the objects of interest and in the associations 
which linger in the minds of the Island residents and of the 
summer visitors "Old Mission Church" is a designation of 
this venerable structure which cannot be dislodged. 

Old Mission it was — a part of the work of Christian mis- 
sions in the earlier days of this century. The missions of 
Protestant Christianity among the Indians of North Amer- 
ica began with John Eliot of New England two hundred 
and fifty years ago. He was known as "the Apostle to 
the Indians," translating the Bible in their language and 
laboring among them for forty years. The great Jonathan 
Edwards also for a part of his ministry served as a mis- 
sionary to an Indian tribe. The saintly name of David 
Brainerd is forever associated with the same kind of work 
in Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, a hundred and 
fifty years ago. In this part of the west Indian missions 
were early begun by the zealous and enterprising Jesuit 



6 THE OLD MISSION CHURCH. 

missionaries of the Catholic Church. More than two cen- 
turies ago Marquette and others planted the cross in this 
very region of Michilimackinac, as well as in other parts 
in the northwest. 

Protestant missions in the west advanced as the settle- 
ment of the country moved from the sea-board. In the 
State of Michigan the first Protestant Indian mission of 
which I have learned was that of the Moravians on the 
Clinton river, at the present site of Mt. Clemens, near De- 
troit. It was founded about 1780. but shortly afterwards 
was removed to Canada. 

The "Northern Missionary Society" was organized as 
early as 1797, and following up their labors among the 
Indians in Western New York, in 1821 they sent out three 
missionaries to found a work on Lake Huron. It was a 
coincidence in the spirit of enterprise that these brethren 
setting forth in their pioneer work should have embarked 
from Buflfalo in the very first steamboat that floated on the 
lakes — the "Walk-in-the- Water," as it was called. The ves- 
sel was wrecked the first night out, but the missionaries, 
having put their hands to the plow, would not look back. 
They bought a team and journeyed over land through the 
wilderness of Canada and at length reached their destina- 
tion and established their mission at Ft. Gratiot, at the 
entrance into Lake Huron. This station was not long con- 
tinued. It was assumed in about two years by another 
board called "The United Foreign Missionary Society."* 
About the same time, however, the attention of this society 
was turned to Mackinac Island as a more important field, 



*In those days, and until recent years, Indian missions, al- 
tliough on our own soil, were classified as foreign. 



THE OLD MISSION CHURCH. 7 

and the Fort Gratiot mission was abandoned or transferred 
to this spot at the head of the lake. This was in 1823. An 
Indian mission was also early established by the Baptists at 
Sault Ste. Marie, under charge of a Rev. Mr. Bingham. At 
the same place in 1831 another mission work, attended with 
marked results, was planted by a young minister of Christ, 
Jeremiah Porter, who was afterwards identified with the be- 
ginnings of Christian work in Chicago. In the Grand Tra- 
verse region, too, and at other points in Michigan missions 
were founded. 

This Mackinac mission was not the first Protestant work 
on the Island. The Rev. David Bacon, of the Connecticut 
Missionary Society, the father of Dr. Leonard Bacon, a 
conspicuous figure in New England until his decease a few 
years ago, had dwelt and preached here for a short time as 
far back as 1802; not, however, establishing an Indian mis- 
sion nor organizing a church. Then about 1820, it is said, 
the Rev. Dr. Morse, father of the inventor of the telegraph, 
visited the Island and preached one Sabbath. On his re- 
turn to the east he called attention to the needs of the Island. 
This led to the Society's sending out in 1822 the Rev. Wm. 
M. Ferry, a Presbyterian minister, to make a more jjarLicLi- 
lar investigation, the consequence of which was the estab- 
lishment of the mission the following year. 

Mr. Ferry was at once appointed superintendent. The 
work began with the opening of a school for Indian chil- 
dren November 3, 1823, which in the first year enrolled 
twelve pupils. Mrs. F'erry and Miss EHzabeth McFarland 
were associated with him in this beginning of the work.* 



♦Mrs Ferry in her New England days had been a particular 
friend of Mary Lyon, the founder of Mt. Holyoke Seminary. 



8 THE OLD MISSION CHURCH. 

The second year it was a school of seventy pupils. About 
one-half were day scholars from the Island, and the others 
boarding pupils in the mission family. For several subse- 
quent years the enrollment averaged about one hundred and 
fifty per year, over a hundred of whom were boarding schol- 
ars, being clothed, fed and lodged by the mission family. 

The mission was principally designed as a school — a 
boarding and home school — for the training of Indian youth, 
and largely with the view of their becoming teachers and 
interpreters in the work of missions in the interior. The 
work was not undertaken specially for the Indians of the 
Island or of the immediate territory, nor for any one tribe. 
The pupils were gathered from a variety of places about the 
upper lakes and the head waters of the Mississippi, many of 
them coming from points more than a thousand miles 
away. Our Island was then a neutral and peaceable ground 
for the different tribes, and, as now for us, so then for the 
Indians it was a favorite place of resort. They came hither 
in large numbers, sometimes as many as fifteen hundred or 
two thousand at a time, meeting in friendly companionship 
and for purposes of trade and to receive their annuities from 
the government.* It will be remembered, too, that in those 
early days our Island shared with Detroit in distinction — 
the two towns being almost the only places of note in the 
State of Michigan. Mackinac was the headquarters and 
center of the vast operations of the American Fur Co., or- 
ganized by John Jacob Astor, of New York. This interest 

♦Strickland in liis "Old Mackinaw" relates that when the In- 
dians of the Grand Traverse region would come over here at 
such times, they would often be accompanied by their mission- 
ary, the Rev. Mr. Daugherty, who kept his tent among them to 
protect his people in their transactions with the traders. 



THE OLD MISSION CHURCH. 9 

alone gave to the Island a very considerable population, 
and that business, together with the general trading inter- 
ests which centered here made Mackinac for a long time 
the largest shipping and commercial point in the north- 
west and made it, too, a place of marked social life. It was 
also the county seat. So, very naturally, this was consid- 
ered a strategic point for misssionary operations even as 
previously it had been a strategic situation from a military 
point of view.* 

In 1826 the United Foreign Missionary Society, after es- 
tablisliing the work here and maintaining it for three years, 
was merged with the American Board of Commissioners 
for Foreign Missions. Henceforth until it closed in 1837 
the Mackinac mission was the work of that board with head- 
quarters in Boston. 

It was two years after the opening of the work before the 
school building and boarding home, now known as the 
Mission House (hotel) was built. This was in 1825. Pre- 
vious to its erection the school was carried on in different 
buildings. At one time three different houses of the Island 
were in use, one being the early court house of that day. 
The Mission House was designed for the accomodation 
of the schools and as a home for the mission families. The 
contract for the building was made with Detroit parties. 
They put up the frame and inclosed it, but went away before 

*The Straits of Mackinac for two centuries have been the seat 
of military occupation under three different flags, in the order of 
French, English and American. In 1780 the post was trans- 
ferred to the Island from the mainland opposite. It is doubtless 
the oldest military post of continuous occupation iu the United 
States, if not on the whole continent. It is with great regret that 
the friends of the Island contemplate the Government's proposed 
abandonment of this most interesting historic post. 



10 THE OLD MISSION CHURCH. 

it was finished. One of the teachers, Mr. Martin Heyden- 
burk, had learned the carpentry trade when a young man in 
the east. He was reheved from school duties for a while that 
he might work on the unfinished building. He hurriedly 
brought it to that stage of completion that it could be en- 
tered for use, and subsequently, after resuming his duties 
in the school-room, did much of the finishing work in the 
interior of the building, giving to it his mornings and even- 
ings and other odd hours when not teaching. At that time, 
having no church building, the main floor of the east wing 
of the Misssion House was fitted with a movable partition, 
so that on week days while used for the school work, on Sun- 
days it became their chapel.* 

Mr. Ferry, besides being the head of the school, was also 
the Protestant pastor of the village. Church services were 
first held, as has just been said, in the east wing of the Mis- 
sion House. I have no record of the year when the church 
was organized. It was Presbyterian in form and was within 
the bounds of the Presbytery of Detroit, though owing, 
probably, to its remoteness seems to have been but seldom 
represented in the meetings of that body. 

During the winter of 1828-29 a most gracious revival of 
religion was experienced under Mr. Ferry's ministn.'. The 
influence of that work seems to have been very marked on 
the Island, and, it is said, penetrated even into the depths 
of the wilderness among the traders. Thirty-three persons 
were added to the church by confesssion of Christ — bring- 
ing the whole membership at that time up to fifty-two, 

*Ex-U. S. Senator from Michigan, the Hon. Thomas W. Ferry, 
the son of the minister in charge of the mission, was born in the 
west wing of this building in 1827. 



THE OLD MISSION CHUBCH. 11 

tft enty -five being of Indian descent and twenty-seven whites, 
exclusive of the mission family. 

Among the notable conversions of that period was that of 
Mr. RobL Stuart who had come here from New York, as the 
resident partner and manager of the Astor Fur Company's 
business, and was perhaps the foremost citizen of the 
Island. Mr. Stuart was the son of Scotch Presb\-terian 
parents, and had been trained in the Scriptures in his early 
life. In this countrv- he had engaged in great enterprises 
and adventures. He had aided in founding the cit>- of As- 
toria on the Pacific coast, and ^\^th a part>' under his lead 
had travelled back across the continent This was among 
the first of the overland trips (about lSl2^ that had ever 
been made, and was attended with great hardship and peril* 
Mr. Stuart was remarkably energetic in business, a leader 
among men, a conspicuous character wherever he might 
be placed and withal fond of pleasures and gayet>- and indifit- 
erent to eternal tilings. Whether the religious interest then 
prevailing on the Island had awakened in his breast 
long dormant influences of his youth in his pious Scotch 
home, we cannot say: but the fact was that no sooner did 
Mr. Ferr> in a private inter^^ew address him on the subject 
of personal religion than, to his surprise, he foimd him 
humbly responsive and ready to accept Jesus Christ He 
united with the church and afterwards ser\-ed in the spiritual 
office of ruling elder. Mrs. Stuart joined ^\-ith her husband 
in the new step. They were both henceforth closely identi- 
fied with the work of the church and gave their enthusiasm 



•A very graphic description of this journey Is given In Wash- 
ington Irving's "Astoria." 



12 THE OLD MISSION CHURCH. 

and their strong- social influence to the Christian cause.* 
In this connection, too, it may be mentioned, as another in- 
teresting circumstance, that Henry R. Schoolcraft, the great 
writer and authority on Indian ethnology, and for several 
years a Government agent on the Island, became a member 
of this church and was also one of its ruling elders. f 

Following this special religious interest, the desire 
was soon manifested for a suitable church building. 
Out of that feeling grew this our Old Mission Church. 
Our good Martin Heydenburk, the teacher who had first 
been a carpenter and already mentioned as having done much 
of the work on the other building, was again called into 
service of the same kind.:}: 

*Thi8 incident lias been related to me by two different persons 
who had it from Mr. Ferry. It is also referred to in the memoir 
of Mrs. Eliza Chappoll Porter, the wife of the late Rev. Dr. Jere- 
miah Porter. Before her marriage Miss Chappell, from 1831-33 
conducted a private school in the village for children who were 
too young for the school at the mission. She had been invited 
here for this purpose by the Stuarts and was an inmate of their 
home. In one of her journal entries she refers very feelingly 
to her domestic happiness in that family. 

tin the records of a meeting of the presbytery of Detroit, held 
January 17th, 1837. the name of Henry R. Schoolcraft appears 
as an Elder from the Mackinac church. The life of this remark- 
able man during his eight years' residence on the Island is spe- 
cially interesting to us. While enthusiastically engaged in 
antiquarian researches, noting every local phenomenon of natural 
science, studying Indian languages and customs, keeping abreast 
of the fresh litei-ature of the day, writing ailicles for journals 
and reviews, corresponding with scholars and societies in Eu- 
rope and with mission boards in the east, and entertaining dis- 
tinguished visitoi-s at his home in the "Old Agency," he seems 
ever actively concerned in the details of the little church; attend- 
ing "Session meetings" and social prayer meetings, giving 
counsel and fellowship, and in all ways seeking the peace and 
prosperity of the church. 

J For these and other particulars pertaining to the buildings, I 
am indebted to a sketch prepared by Mr. Heydenburk himself 
nnd found in ">rir]iigan Pioneer Collections," vol III. 



THE OLD MISSION CHURCH. 13 

Relieved from school work, he crossed over the straits in 
the winter with a company of helpers, and in the neighbor- 
hood of the hamlet of Freedom, just opposite us, he set to 
work getting out the beams and lumber for the church. In 
three weeks' time he had all the cutting done, fifty pieces 
flatted to be made into scantlings and joists, and an abund- 
ance of logs ready for the saw mill, which was situated on 
the same shore, and operated by Michael Dousman, a name 
familiar to those who have read early Mackinac annals. 
On the I ith of April, the thermometer marking zero, a large 
force of men and horses went across to haul over on the 
ice all the heavy timbers— the sawed lumber to come after- 
wards by boat. But when about half way back with the 
weighty loads they were met by messengers from the island 
telling them that the ice in the channel had become porous 
and they could not cross that part. They therefore left the 
timbers at Round Island, and after some exciting adventures 
and no little peril, by nightfall got themselves and the horses 
across the breaking ice of the channel. That night there 
came a severe freezing and the next day the material was 
safely landed on the island, and the work of the church 
building went bravely on. But when the frame was up and 
partly inclosed, and the last vessel of the season was about 
to leave for Detroit, the workmen made exorbitant de- 
mands (a sort of "strike," perhaps it was, though that name 
for it was probably unknown) ; they supposing the demands 
must be met, or the building be left in that condition all 
winter. I have already mentioned Mr. Heydenburk once 
or twice. But he was a teacher worth having, and in just such 
emergencies especially, with his skill in carpentry. He 



14 THE OLD MISSION CHURCH. 

said: "Let the men go if they think they must." And he again 
took up his tools and before the severity of winter had come 
he had the building enclosed and the steeple finished, and in 
due course of time the whole work was completed, and the 
church dedicated. The commodious basement story was 
at once used for school rooms — this room for the public 
Sabbath worship. The materials put in the building were 
of the most durable quality. The foundation walls are of 
unusual thickness. The large timbers, the cedar studding 
and joists, and the whole frame-work of the structure are as 
strong to-day and as firmly jointed as when the house was 
first built. As Miss Woolson in her story of "Anne," a book 
redolent of Mackinac, says of the old church, it was "as solid 
as the faith of those who built it." 

I have the following very interesting extract from the 
olBcial report sent on from here to the Mission Board in 
Boston, October, 1830: 

"The meeting house has been finished and occupied for 
public worship. The basement story furnishes convenient 
school rooms. The expense of erecting the church has been 
borne almost entirely by the people of the village and the 
traders from the interior, who, on this as well as other oc- 
casions, have shown nu:ch friendship for the mission, and 
truly Christian liberality towards other benevolent objects." 

So the church was built, and truly a pioneer church for 
this part of the world it was. It is interesting to reflect 
that we are sitting to-day in what is probably the oldest 
Protestant church building in our country between the 
.State of Ohio and the farthest point of the northwest. And 



THE OLD MISSION CHURCH. 15 

perhaps, too, the claim might be hazarded that in respect 
to original and unchanged appearance there are very few 
church edifices — of any name or in any part of the earlier 
west — that can boast of greater age. For while other old 
church structures show enlargement and change, a new end 
or a new front or a tower or spire built in subsequent years, 
or other marks of alteration, this one in its entire structural 
form from foundation wall to its tin-topped belfry and from 
end to end, and in the plaster of its walls and ceiling, in its 
floors and its weather-worn exterior, stands without any 
change, the same to-day as when first built. 

In those days congregations, large and very interesting, 
used to fill these pews. There were the teachers and their 
families and the pupils — the pupils coming in as a body and 
sitting together. Then there were many families of the 
village; officers and clerks of the fur company, traders, native 
Indian families and others who were members or regular 
attendants. The military post, too, used to be represented 
— officers and men coming down the street on Sunday morn- 
ings in martial step. The soldiers would stack their guns 
outside in front of the church ; one of the men would be de- 
tailed to stand guard over the arms, while the others would 
file into the pews set apart for their accommodation.* 

The whole number of members enrolled during the 
history of the church was about eighty, exclusive of the 
Mission family. As a pioneer church on the wilderness 



♦In Mrs. Porter's Mackinac diary I find an entry of July 16th, 
1832: "Four are to be added to the church to-day. Capt. Russell 
and lady of U. S A., are two of the number." And again she 
writes on Sunday evening after the communion service: "It is 
delightful to see the officers of the army with their soldiers en- 
listing together in the service of the Prince of peace." 



16 THE OLD MISSION CHURCH. 

frontier it was remarkable in having on its roll and in spirit- 
ual office two men of such standing and public name as Mr. 
Robert Stuart and Henry R. Schoolcraft. 

Besides the Mission House and the church, there were 
also three or four other structures on the premises. These 
were workshops — a carpenter shop, a blacksmith shop and 
others. For in connection with class-room and book educa- 
tion, the school had a practical system of manual training. 
The Indian boys were taught the trades and how to till the 
soil, and the girls were taught sewing and housework. 
Two of these shop buildings stood on the opposite, or beach 
side of the road. Another one adjoined the church on the 
east side and was the carpenter shop, over which we may 
well assume that Mr. Heydenburk presided. 

The name of Mr. Ferry is the one most intimately con- 
nected with the mission — both the work of the school as 
its superintendent, and the work of the church as the village 
pastor. He enjoyed the confidence and respect of the resi- 
dents, and of the traders and of the Indians. As a general 
pastor on the Island he rendered much spiritual service at 
the garrison, then having no chaplain, and was held in high 
estimation by the officers and the private soldiers. During 
the course of the mission the following persons at different 
times, and for longer or shorter periods, were connected 
with the work: Mrs. Ferry, Eunice O. Osmar, Martin 
Heydenburk, Mrs. Heydenburk, Elizal^eth McFarland, 
Delia Cook, John S. Hudson, Mrs. Hudson, Jedidiah D. 
Stevens, Mrs. Stevens, Sabrina Stevens, Hannah Goodale, 
Elizabeth Taylor, Matilda Hotchkiss, Frederic Ayer, John 



THE OLD MISSION CHURCH. 17 

Newland, Mrs. Newland, Elisha Loomis, Mrs. Loomis, Abel 
D. Newton, Persis Skinner, Chauncey Hall, John L. Sey- 
mour, Jane B. Leavitt, Lucius Geary, Mason Hearsey, W. 
R. Campbell, Mrs. Campbell. 

We have but scanty record of these teachers. They came 
from the Eastern States and we may presume, in the true 
missionary and heroic spirit. They taught five days and a 
half of the week, and held four school terms per year, of 
twelve weeks each, training their pupils both in book 
knowledge and in useful handicraft. They were allured by 
no worldly ambitions in coming out from their homes to 
this remote pioneer point. Their remuneration in salary 
we may well believe was very meagre. Concerning one of 
the gentlemen teachers it has been facetiously related that 
for compensation he had the privilege of selecting from the 
boxes of second-hand clothing sent to the mission, he had as 
many potatoes as he and the Indian boys could raise and 
as many delicious white fish as they could catch. While, 
of course, this was not intended as an exact showing of the 
ledger account, we can at least feel assured that their work 
offered no great salary attraction. 

During the brief history of the school no less than five 
hundred children of Indian blood and habits acquired the 
rudiments of education and were taught the pursuits and 
toils of civilized life. They were at all times, too, under 
Christian influences, and were instructed in the truths of the 
Gospel and many became pious. A slight glimpse of the 
religious teaching of the school is given in the biography of 
Mrs. Porter, to which book I am already indebted for in- 
teresting data. In one place she speaks of visiting the Mis- 



18 THE OLD MISSION CHURCH 

sion House and hearing the young Indian girls at their 
evening lesson repeat together the 23d Psalm and the 55th 
Chapter of Isaiah, and of hearing a hymn sung "by sixteen 
sweet Indian voices which was peculiarly touching." As 
far as the teachers could keep track of the pupils after they 
had finished their school work, the report was that they 
turned out as well as the same number of white children 
would have done under the same conditions. 

The Mackinac experiment of mission work, unfortunately, 
was not continued long enough to show the best results. 
Changes were taking place which affected the island. The 
Indians were not coming here as before for trade, and it was 
becoming difficult to secure pupils. The Michigan 
lands were coming in demand for settlement and the govern- 
ment was deporting some of the tribes to western reserva- 
tions. Mr. Astor retired from the Fur Company and it be- 
gan to change from its former prosperity and magnitude. 
In 1834 Mr. Ferry withdrew. About this time, too, the 
island was coming into reputation as an attractive resort 
for white visitors from below. Thus, for a great variety of 
reasons the Island ceasing to be an advantageous point for 
the Indian mission, it was deemed best to discontinue it and 
about 1836 the land (some twelve acres) and the buildings 
thereon were sold, and in 1837 the mission was formally 
given up. 

Upon the breaking up of the mission the teachers, of 
course, left the Island and were scattered in different quar- 
ters. Some went to other mission points and continued 
the same kind of work. Others found homes in the new 
settlements which were opening in the southern part of the 



THE OLD MISSION CHURCH. 19 

State, and became highly useful factors in their communi- 
ties. Mr. Ferry settled at what became Grand Haven, him- 
self founding that city and also its Presbyterian church, and 
continuing to reside there until his death in 1867.* 

The mission given up, the school closed, the teachers 
and their families gone, the trade and emporium character 
of the village falling away, the church organization did not 
long survive. There was no successor of Mr. Ferry in the 
pastorate. Without a settled minister and with none but oc- 
casional preaching services by visiting strangers, the church 
life gradually ceased. For well nigh sixty years the old 
church building has stood, for the most part, as but a name 
and a memory. Not altogether unused has it been but 
Its use has been only desultory and for miscellaneous'pur- 
poses. At one time the Rev. Mr. O'Brien, a chaplain at the 
Fort and pastor of an Episcopal flock organized in 1842 
and occupying the Fort chapel, held Sunday afternoon ser- 
vices in this building. The Catholics of the Island used it 
while erecting their present church about twenty years ago 
They put on the excellent roof which now covers the house 
At different times in the summer seasons this room would be 
used ,n religious worship by the visitors. The village pub- 
^lic^iool was for one period held in the basement. In the 

al by the Rev. D ^ Evans DD 'atT.^t^'"^"^ ""' ^^^ ^"^^^- 
Haven, that for more than %uf^ ^ *""'' P^^**^'" »* «i'aiid 

Pie were able aLd w iHng to emo loTn ^S'' . ^^^1 ""'^^ "^^ P'^^ 
vices to the church. He took s?eltl^^nZT■^^''' K^.^^"" ^^« ^*^^-- 



20 THE OLD MISSION CHURCH. 

days before any public assembly hall was built on the Island 
it was a place for festivals, and meetings for public speaking, 
and sometimes for traveling entertainments and perform- 
ances. Though in all these years known by no other name 
than Old Mission Church, it has not been possible always 
to retain for it the character of a church. I think the last 
religious use it was put to was about five years ago, when 
the choir boys of one of the Episcopal churches of Chicago 
were given an outing on the Island, in charge of one or two 
clergymen, and a prayer service was held here every morn- 
ing during their stay and the sweet voices of the boys filled 
these old walls. The building, however, kept falling more 
and more into dilapidation. But, although its shutters 
were worn out or gone, its windows and doors broken and 
its appearance in general was most unkempt, it has been 
each year to every succession of visitors, and especially to 
the old resorters and to the old residents an object of pecul- 
iar interest.* 

A number of summer visitors, joined by some of the Island 
residents, recently purchased the property. It is held in 
trust for them by a board of seven trustees. f In repairing 
it, the object has been to restore it, as nearly as was possible, 
to its original condition and appearance. You will thus un- 
derstand the reason for the altitude and the general unmod- 



*General Howard, being on the island a few summers ago on a 
tour of inspection of the military posts, told me of the pleas- 
ure he had in seeing the old church. 

tOf these trustees two are to be residents of the Island, and 
five are to be summer visitors owning or renting cottages. As 
at present constituted the Board is as follows: 

Residents of the Island— John D. Davis, Geo. T. Arnold. 

Cottagers— H. M. Duffield, Detroit, Mich.; M. C. Williams, St. 
Louis, Mo.; F. S. Hanson, Chicago, III; Walter Brooks, Detroit, 
Mich.; H. L. Jenness, Detroit, Mich. 



THE OLD MISSION CHURCH. 21 

ern style of the pulpit; you will perceive the explanation of 
the perhaps uncomfortable pews and the little doors which 
shut you in, the diminutive panes of glass in the windows, 
the quaint old gallery and the seating of the singers there. 
You will understand, too, why we are indisposed to give 
a fresh look to the outside of the house. There is no eccle- 
siastical organization whatever in connection with the build- 
ing, nor any denominational color or control. The motive 
in the movement has been first to preserve the old sanctuary 
as a historic relic of the Island and memorial of early mis- 
sion work, and second to have it as a chapel for union reli- 
gious services during the few weeks when summer visitors 
crowd the Island. 

In watching the work the other day of setting up this old 
pulpit just where it used to stand, and putting up its simple 
stairway on the same side where ran the former one, long 
since removed, many of the little work-marks and lines of 
sixty-five years ago, long hidden and concealed, were dis- 
covered. Here the outline and impact where a spindle had 
stood, here a small mortise where some absent tennon once 
fitted, here a circle mark worn into the wood by the long 
turning of a fastening button, and here in entire distinctness 
a scratch-awl mark made for some measurement by the car- 
penter of two generations ago — here they were, these little 
marks, still abiding long after the hands that made them 
had crumbled into dust and the tools had rusted away. And 
I could not but think of another kind of workmen who also 
long ago had wrought within these pulpit lines, and of tht 
spiritual impact and marks which they had made. The 



22 THE OLD MISSION CHURCH. 

truth preached from this old desk, "as nails fastened by the 
Master of assemblies," made its lines of impress on the 
souls of men and women which they carried through all 
their years, and which have passed over with them into the 
permanency of their eternal state to give significance and 
witness forever to The Old Mission Church. 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



016 090 702 2 



